dorsal

1. 1.

   belonging to or on or near the back or upper surface of an animal or organ or part

   “the dorsal fin is the vertical fin on the back of a fish and certain marine mammals”

   Antonymsventral
2. 2.

   facing away from the axis of an organ or organism

   “the abaxial surface of a leaf is the underside or side facing away from the stem”

   Synonymsabaxial

   biology

Other forms of dorsal

comparative

dorsaller·

superlative

dorsallest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about dorsal

What does dorsal mean?

dorsal means "belonging to or on or near the back or upper surface of an animal or organ or part". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in dorsal?

dorsal has 2 syllables: dor-sal. The stress falls on "dor". In IPA it is /ˈdɔɹsəl/.

What is another word for dorsal?

Close synonyms include abaxial. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of dorsal?

The recorded antonyms are ventral.

Is dorsal a common word?

dorsal is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.